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VROOM! BEHIND THE WHEEL WITH
Forza Motorsport 3

As I continue to age, it gets harder to distinguish the passing of time. Seasons blend into one another and the years go by far too quickly. With the exception of the spirit of Halloween, I tend to not get too involved with the holiday season.

Then there are the games. Around this time every year, it gets difficult for me to find my coffee table under the pile of games thrown on top of it. Today was an exceptionally huge day, retail-wise. DJ Hero, Tekken 6, and Forza Motorsport 3 all hit store shelves along with a bunch of other games I probably won’t get to play until at least 2010. With each holiday flood, there are also games that hog my attention. Right now, Forza Motorsport 3 is that game. I’ve been playing it for the past week, on and off, and have been thoroughly enjoying trying out the various cars and racing around at my own pace.

Turn 10, developers of Forza Motorsport 3, approached the game production immediately after finishing up Forza Motorsport 2. A dominant mindset throughout development was to make a game that could make car guys into gamers, and one that could make gamers into car guys.

I don’t normally consider myself a car person. I drive, and have owned a few cars so far. But for the most part I’m pretty hands-off when it comes to maintenance (something that my friend Peter sought to change recently when he showed me a few basics of car mechanics this summer). This said, I can definitely appreciate finer automobiles and have a soft sport for the muscle cars of yesteryear. In fact, I often proclaim that the ’60s were the last decade an American company actually made a car.

So it’s with this that I approach Forza Motorsport 3: it’s a game that lets me drive cars I will probably never get to in real life. There are many ways to appreciate and play the game. Superficially, yet also most importantly, this is a racing game. High-performance automobiles (as well as a few clunkers, truthfully) are at your disposal, and it’s during the white-knuckle moments of racing where the game really shines and is the most fun. Coming in for a sharp turn with a group of cars can be a rewarding experience if you’re able to pull out ahead or a frustrating one if you get boxed in, or worse, banged around.

With Forza Motorsport 3, the franchise has introduced yet another driving assist via the rewind feature. At any time during a solo race, you can rewind to a point in the race five seconds ago by hitting the Back button on the controller. It’s a helpful tool for when you’re first learning the control subtleties of the various cars, but more often than not I found being thrown back five seconds more than a little disorienting.

The Forza series is known for providing a great simulation of real-life racing experiences, and everything down to individual tuning parts are modeled after real-life counterparts. Car interiors are also present and, if you can find your actual car in the game, you can actually sit in the driver’s seat and have the car control like your real-life one. This is where the game seeks to turn gamers into car lovers; the sheer amount of detail and attention given to every vehicle is somewhat mind-blowing. For the most part, after leveling up my car, I choose to have it automatically upgrade. But I can also go into a sub menu to see all the details of what exactly is being upgraded with the vehicle.

Additionally, for those not into the simulation angle of racing games, there are loads of assists that can be toggled on and off. Everything from the guideline on the road to auto brakes can be used to adjust the racing experience to a comfortable level for all players. As you become more comfortable with the game, assists can be removed until you don’t need to use them any more. In this respect, the game is one that most gamers (and possibly some non-gamers) can pick up and play.

The game also includes an excellent marketplace system where users can create, share, and sell their designs, tuning setups, and cars for in-game currency. These saleable items can also be ranked by purchasers, and this in turn results in leaderboard placements for designers, tuners, and the like. The design tools in the game are similar to the rather primitive shape options used in the last title, but the designs so far have been just as amazing as anything I’ve seen from the second game. On this note, I tried making a Decepticon logo from The Transformers. It’s essentially nothing but a series of triangles yet I failed miserably at this. It just gave me that much more appreciation for the people that are able to pull off amazing works of art within the game. This also means I’ll probably be buying one in-game from one of the many talented designers contributing to it.

Due to the sheer size of Forza Motorsport 3, it wasn’t possible for me to finish it before writing this review – however from what I’ve experienced of the game so far, things keep getting more enjoyable the more I play it. The only downside so far has been that Suzuki is completely absent from the game, so I’ve been unable to recreate my real-life car.

I forgive Turn 10 for this because everything else about the game eclipses this. If you’re a fan of racing games and haven’t already bought Forza Motorsport 3, it had better be because you have no money.

Posted in Awesome, Reviews, Xbox 360 |